7% of sports illustrated's revenues. it's a media machine. >> coming at a time when it's going to stand alone on its own. we'll see how well it sells as it goes online today. john, thanks for being here. >> thanks for being here. >> that does it for us here on "squawk on the street" as we hit our time. now it's time nor "money halfti halfti halftime." >> carl, thanks so much. really up to is mysterious -- phil lebeau. calls of the day and the street making big and bold moves today. traders decide whether it's a buy. make it go with underperforming in the earnings. stock headed for rock bottom. we're going to look at that just ahead.

we do begin in the olympic sp spirit today. the u.s. versus the rest of the world. a look at which markets really are the best bet for your money. stocks here are coming off their best week of the year. the nikkei just had its best day since august and even china is now in the black for 2014. where is your best bet right now? bloom and doom author has an idea. here's what he told us on "squawk" this morning. >> i think i've been making the case, to make five to ten years. i will make more money by buying now in emerging economies and in the u.s. having said that, i think it's still too early to make a major commitment to emerging stoemtds. >> he also went tonto say, pete, it's too late to buy the u.s. >> i totally disagree with him. i still think the best place

continues to be the u.s. there are other places where i certainly think you can put some of your money and you're going to probably do very well. by far i think the u.s. is the best market you can go into right now. obviously happen to be very stock specific. there are areas, sectors, specific names in each sect their have definitely lagged. i think that's where you're going to find some of the great opportunities. caterpillar was one when it was down underneath 90. pushing up closer to 100 it's no longer one of those. you can look at the industrial space and see where you can get the great returns. the u.s. is still the best place to invest. >> josh brown, what about pete's point? where is the best place, the best bang for your puck right now is where? >> well, i think that faber and pete are both excellent examples of why you want to be global in general. why went you're doing asset allocati allocation, it would be insane to try to decide one instead of the other when you can do both. in this day and age you can build a global portfolio and

spend less than 25 basis points to getting a cess to all of these asset classes and do your tilts and you can add to some areas where they get cheaper and take profits to some areas where they get more expensive. that's the appropriate way to invest if you're looking behaviorally at what's worked over decades. so what i would argue is, you can be in the u.s. but you don't have to exclusively be in the u.s. about 50% of the world's market cap is u.s. stocks. there's a whole wide world out there and most markets right now are much cheaper than the s&p 500. >> steph? >> yeah, on that point. you look at book value basis the u.s. is trading at 2.6 times. china is up 1.5 times. japan is up 1.6 times. europe is two times. certainly there is value overseas. i would just tell you, scott, you know my playbook playoffs. it's all about international. i believe that 2014 you will see better growth as we progress throughout the year. and that is driven by all the stimulus that we've seen. and all of these targeted efforts, from a variety of

central bankers. so i think that you want to have u.s. based companies international -- with an international exposure. >> u.s. space with exposure overseas rather than overseas with exposure to that particular market. >> yeah. i have an edge here. we get information from company management teams. international companies it's harder to get the information from. >> give me an example. >> so accenture, 70% of exposure is international. 30% is here. not only are they international but they have some of their operations are very localized. right? they actually have people over there and they're rupping their businesses locally in these regions. so -- you have exposure to china and to europe and to japan and also to india and some of the brick coupleries. you do get that exposure. unfortunately i'm trailing here but i think over -- throughout the year it will get some steam. >> the u.s. from an investment standpoint is the best place to be. when you see the em tell off

like it did two or three weeks eye ago, literally blood in the streets and almost a panic, that's when you want to step in and buy some of these things. look at emerging markets like brazil, turkey, down 20% off their highs, just this year alo alone, you can look at those areas and look at an eem to break through 40. if you want to trade that, catch that recent sell-off in the marketplace, buy it, have a stop loss in there but from 40 that picks up steam and gets you into the low to mid 40 sglz you mentioned andre is here as well pr jpmorgan funds. you also favor the u.s. >> yes. >> why? >> i think both the u.s. and european stocks are in the same place when it comes to economic momentum. europe is earlier than the u.s. but i would agree with the earlier comments that i wouldn't look as a silo to u.s. and europe. i think the story is to buy names that are associated with a u.s. recovery, a european recovery not so much of the china story. buzz abecause although we have good news on credit growth, they

keep telling us that for some people they're going to grow faster. they're not. >> you think the emerging market turmoil, the -- i don't want to say it wasn't really a panic, but it certainly was an elevated amount of risk perceived in those markets. overdone or are there real issues there? >> i think there are real issues in some countries so i think the story is about differentiating which countries have the real issues and which ones have just shown some type of contagion which might create opportunities. for instance, india is a country, down 13% just in their currency the loose 15 months. there's a lot of things going positively towards them going into an election year. actually the opposition party might actually win this thing. and they're very business friendly, very for-investor friendly. positive. a tail end. yet thrown into the fragile five that everyone talks about. >> andres is right in that when people use this term emerging market as a catch-all it makes

me want to pull my hair out of my head. last year twi want was down and brazil was down 17%. that's a massive differentiation in terms of performance and there's no reason to look at both of those markets as though they had anything in common other than the fact that they're lumped into a few indexes together. i think in this day and age the tools exist that we can be a little bit more discerning. we don't have to go thumbs up or thumbs down on 75% of the world's population, whether or not that's worth investing? >> pete? >> andres, as far as certain names, one that really stands out is something like citi where obviously one of the reasons that it hasn't perform as well is use the european concerns and everybody is obviously that makes some sense. but if you weeurope is okay, isa name you look at and say, you know what, this name is out perform as we get further into 014. >> i can't speak on the individual names but banks here in the u.s. actually look healthy from their balance sheets. their credit loans are starting to pick up.

so i would look not just at the larger banks but regional banks. as yields continue to rise, one of the sectors that looks well is financials. >> one more question on the emerging markets. if brazil -- we showed the graphic on the wall. brazil down 17, turkey down 17, china down 13. over one year, drops. at some point those become attractive? faber was making the point that they're attractive but maybe not yet. maybe there's still further downside to go. >> for some of the names it's not done yet. especially if short-term rates are still at zero, right? eventually as rates rise, some of these countries that depend on other people's money will continue to see some volatility. brazil is one that i would wait a little bit more for better prices. >> when can those markets, for lack of a better word, decouple themselves from fed policy? they move based on what the fed is doing. >> once rates normalize, which could take a while. that's the point to differentiate which countries might take a while to see that

and others might already be in later innings like india. >> andres, great to have you as always. >> thank you. let's do some whale watching on our trader blitz. first up, warren buffett is selling its stake in dish. >> pretty small positions for warren buff fit. 30,000 shares. more importantly is the add of 12.6 million shares of goldman sachs earned during the quarter and look at what he's doing, continues to buy into exxonmobil. i think those are the more key elements of what happened with berkshire. wow, there's a crowd of big whales in general motors. you guys notice this? of all took an increase their stakes in the automaker. steph? >> that makes me nervous. who is going to be left to buy? we own it. we like it. i like the restructuring story. the balance sheet improvement. i like the dividend they just announced, better than expected. >> murph?

herbalife will report earnings today after the close. some have gotten out. what are you looking for here? >> i'm the herbalife earnings today is not going to be about soros but whether there's something there that bill ackman can sink his teeth into. if there's nothing there that looks line an investigation, as long as the numbers are in line, i think you see short covering, i think the stock -- >> already preannounced so the numbers are not going to be a big shock at all. it's going to be what else is in there, if anything. >> like an investigation, if not, i think it rallies. >> the latest filings confirming what i reported last month as well that dan lobe added a huge stake in hertz. josh? >> they're all in here. and i think what's interesting is that the stock has not acted well. year to date it's off 10%. it's very high beta. 2.88. it really moves in both directions. it's a hot stop there. traders are watching as hedge

funds pile in. i think it will stay interesting throughout the quarter of the year. coming up, apple and tesla are holding a mysterious meeting. with all the opinions about stocks out there, how do you know which ones to follow? the equity summary score consolidates the ratings of up to 10 independent research providers into a single score that's weighted based on how accurate they've been in the past. i'm howard spielberg of fidelity investments. the equity summary score is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. call or click to open your fidelity account today.

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welcome to the "halftime report." check out shares of twitter. ipo period for nonexecutive employees ended over the weekend. 10 million shares eligible for shares. that boost the number eligible for trading by 12% or 90 million shares. now, this is a smaller lot. a big one comes in may. 475 million shares come available for sell then. you can see the stock is lurnt i up a percent and a half despite that ipo lockup. >> dom uses the the word despite because you would assume if a lockup, regardless of its size, was expiring the stock would trade up. >> if you go back a week or so ago you saw a pretty violent move to the downside of twitter. a lot of that was going infront of this frontup period and not

get that today. if you try to read through this, scott, it tells me after the stock made that correction, after the earnings, people are wanting to mold on for now and not really willing to start hitting the stock. >> phil lebeau has breaking news now. phil? >> scott, this involves united airlines for the last three hours. tracking the story. we can report that unite sd dealing with computer glitches. that's the term the company is using. system wide. not only here in the united states but around the world. it is not an outage but according to united airlines, they say they are experiencing their passenger service computer system having glitches. we are working to resolve this as quickly as possible. and apol jis to customers for any inconvenience. as you can imagine, guys, there are a number of people taking the social media saying great, my flight is delayed. the extent of the delays is hard to know at this point. united has told me it's working to put a waiver system in place for those who have missed their flights or have had connections that have gone off without them being in place.

but again, this is a computer glitch. side for united. not an outage. we will continue to work this story. >> as if the weather wasn't enough. >> contactually. and you know united has had a history of problems when it comes to its computer reservation system. this is just the latest and one that's going to irritate not only investors but obviously the millions of people who fly on united around the world. >> right. scott. that was one story. shift gears to the tesla story which i know you guys have been discussing and others have been discussing all weekend. there was a report of a san francisco chronicle that came out on sunday that elon musk, the ceo of tesla had a meeting with the head of m&a for apple computers. that meeting did happen over a year ago. what was discussed is not part of this report. so it's a bit of a mystery exactly what was discussed during this lunch between mr. musk and the head of m&a from apple. but keep in mind musk and tesla executives regularly meet with other leefrds in the tech industry.

they're also meeting with people in the automotive industry but particularly because of their location and background of tesla meeting with tech leaders and, remember, tesla is looking to incorporate more tech features not only into their cars but also into the charging network. that's a big focus right now for elon musk and tesla executives. tesla will be reporting earnings tomorrow after the bell. these are q4 earnings. this stock right now trading at an all-time high, $204. i'm not sure people will ever expect this stock to get above $100, let alone above $200. we'll see what the reaction is after the earnings come out after the bell tomorrow. >> you think, phil, this is more likely than we've seen more technology companies try to own, so to speak, your vehicle, apple trying to get a foothold in that regard? is it about battery technology? is it much to do about nothing? what do you make of the whole thing? >> i think it's much to do about nothing to look into the idea of apple buying tesla or tesla selling out. that's not going to happen. and so take that off the table.

i think what's more likely happening is that elon musk is meeting with leaders in the tech industry about incorporating more technology into the vehicle. and we know that apple wants to get into the vehicle, particularly into that second seat, the backseat of the vehicle in terms of what they can do in that arena. so i think that is likely what this meeting was all about. it could also be, guys, these guys run in the same circles, you know. >> yeah, but -- the fact, phil, that it's the m&a guy from apple is what raises eyebrows. >> i guarantee you he's not the only m&a guy that elon musk has had lunch with. i bet you he's had it with a lot of other people. and the fact that it's apple have people thinking, well, listen, at one point there was a suggestion of an i-car, would they sell that to apple? that's not happening. >> yeah. all right, phil. thanks for separating some things. >> scott, probably giving a lot more credit to tim cook in terms of kour ranlgs. i don't think that he's looking to even entertain the idea of spending $30 billion on buyinges

the larks nu the tesla, number one. number two, google was meeting with tesla a year ago about driving cars. this is a lot more innuendo than what might affect the share prices of the companies. >> you talk about apple and they're not being growth there. you see the stock make a nice move from 500 to 550. this puts it out there that may have enough cash that if they wanted to they could buy growth. they could buy any growth they want. i think people are going to start work that into their models. i'm not saying they're going to buy tesla. >> isn't that the point that murph is making. it at least has people think that apple is going to do something with its cash. >> and the partnerships. you look at the -- >> beyond buying back stock. >> i think what we talked about for a long time is they've got to do something about the acquisitions. this has gotten to be something very, very aggressive. but it's not the $20 billion numbers. we're talking about $500 million

type numbers which was much larger than the previous year. i think this story is a lot more about something very interesting which is how about a partner hip between them. people speculate about the batteries and supply chains. the issues that tesla faces right now in production. if they can work something out with apple in that regard, that could be something, scott. another day with the nasdaq and what stocks are pushing the index to a 13-year high for the fourth consecutive day. later, not a bad day for this man, where is he? where is he? there he is. carl icahn, actavis is buying forest labs. [ bagpipes play ]

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the nasdaq one l100 hitting ano 13-year high. sheila is joining us from the nas to break it all down. >> the gains we're seeing today are pushing the nasdaq to a 13 1/2 year high. that's actually important because this is exactly the kind of winning streak that traders like to see. higher highs.

don't forget the nasdaq 100 did lead the way since february 3rd. also many people taking this as a positive sign of leadership here at the nasdaq. it is a sign that investors are willing to take on more risk. so let's talking about what's moving the nasdaq today because we are seeing some nice strength and old tech names like apple, microsoft, google. biotech, gilead and biogen leading the gate today having the most positive on the index. tesla, green mountain coffee, baidu, all higher on the day. talking about two movers getting buzz today. just take a look at blackberry stock. up 5% after an upgrade from under her perfoperform. they have r. seeing limited downgrade to the stock but it did give kudos to management team and dan loeb, staking a small stake in the conn company.

wanting to finish up on lulu. getting a buzz after upgraded by oppenheimer. look, oppenheimer says this is a controversial stock. a lot of we have been seeing has been self inflicted but they do like the brand equity and they do think that it is now a good entry point. scott? >> sheila, thanks. guys, quickly. this nasdaq move can't be overlooked or understated. when you have the other major averages fighting to try and get back to flat or positive for the year, you went the nasdaq up 1 1/2%. it's not even better than that. steph, is technology really going to be the place to be in 2014? is that going rule the day? >> i think it is. especially because valuations are not extended. you know, sheila just talked about the old tech doing well today like apple and google and that's very encouraging. but there are a whole host of companies that have not performed as well. we were just talking off line about company called sienna. this stock is up 12% in two days and yet lagged and still trading in kind of a 12 multiples. that's kind of reasonable to me for a company that's going to go

20%, 25% over the long term. >> i believe that tech spending is going to be there. and i think it's the chip space, scott, when you taught valuation, i mean, they're inexpensive. the guys are loaded with cash. your micron is doing well. i own some, too. i think this stock is going to $30 a share. 54-week high today. >> are you allowed to buy in i horn's name? >> yeah. >> maybe. we're a team. >> just real quick. on the nasdaq i think the nasdaq is the only major index that hasn't taken out its old highs from that 14 years ago and you will see that this year. the gold run continues even as a report today showed that gold demand dropped 15% in 2013. for more let's go to bertha coombs. >> scott, that report out from the world gold counsel saying that demand last year dropped mostly because of investment. physical demand, buying, especially in china, was near

record highs. jim joins us from the cme, jeff is here, too. jim, what do you make of this? do you think that it's time to buy gold here? investors are miling? >> it might be time to buy gold. a lot of investors were buying paper gold over the years, preceding 2013 and they all got washed out. on the lows, two things happened. maybe we're not going to taper as quickly with softness of data but there was a lot of shorts on the low. 11% bounce. i would probably bye thiuncefor. beyond that i'm not sure. >> what do you think? there are a lot of shorts in there which does help with these bounces that we've been seeing of late. also hearing folks buying puts. are they heavy, do you think, or do you think this is going to go lower still? >> i'm in the bull camp approximately trying to find a gold bull, bertha, in january is trying to find a sass skach. look at the headline number. etf space which allows

inexpensive ready access to a product like gold is easy in, easy out. that number is xs xaser rated. >> all right, guys. hold it there. we're going to talk more about gold coming up on "futures now" at 1:00 and our gesz will be m ark curry. he will be joining us. join us as well online. back to you. >> bertha, we certainly will. coming up next, it is the deal of the day. actavis and forest labs both hitting all-time labs on $25 billion deal. who could be the next target for a mega deal? we're trading -- taking you to the traders for answers. plus, if you spent your valentine's day watching "house of cards" you're certainly not alone. even president obama could not wait for the premier. tweeting, tomorrow, house of cards, no spoilers, please. we'll tell you what it means for

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shares of forest labs are soaring to an all-time high today after specialty pharmaceutical company actavis confirms plans to buy the company for $25 billion. making a killing today, one carl icahn who owns more than 11% of forest labs. he tweeted out, great result for all. frx shareholders. proves again that activism works. he since since our involvement, they enjoyed a gain of approximately $17 billion over 193%. and i know, you know, firsthand that he has thought that that the new ceo that they put in, saunders, has done a good job. now he's laughing out of the way to the bank. >> good for carl, right? he handled this perfectly today. the victory lap.

he was in there and made a ton of money. he didn't gloat too much but gloated just enough. and i think he tells you that we has other positions out there that he thinks he can get similar results in. >> all right. make sure to tune in today at 4:00 378 eastern when actavis ceo will be here to discuss that big deal today. what other deals do you think are on the table, guys? >> i think in the big pharma space when you look at a deal like this, this is huge. we haven't seen a deal like this in quite a while. i don't know that you're going to see the $20 billion type deals because it takes so long, scott, to reap the reward with the synergies you can put together there. you can see smaller deals. you see the partnerships all the time. the mercks and they're not just with the biotech companies but they're doing partnerships with other big pharma names. merck, pfizer, lilly working to the. i don't know that we're going to see this kind of a deal again soon. >> i totally agree. one company that doesn't have to do a deal maybe because of the activities a pension goes tote

pipeline would be bristol-myers. if you look at their pipeline they have a ton coming down the pipe. that stock trades about in line, 28 multiple, in line with the biotech stocks. with that kind of pipeline, i think it could go much higher. >> has cramer taught you to say that? >> i got him in that. >> bristol-myers! come on! >> i'll give you one name i don't think any of these guys agree with, teva, stocks trading up near high right now but a lot of news there in the pipeline. a lot of interesting movement with management. i think that could be another one now that someone could be taking a look at. josh? >> let me throw out a tech name. pando pandora, look at a weekly chart. every time this thing has the slightest fade on any kind of negative news, it pops right back up. people know a growing subscriber business like this is katniss to companies who want to get in there and compete with apple or compete with google and you can

even see either of those two companies considering ak question sigsz. i think pandora, they figured out local advertising, they figured out how to keep people listening for long periods of time because people love the app. at some point someone's got to take it out. people are paying big money right now for all kinds of media deals. >> all right. from one winning icahn trade to another, netflix, shares are soaring to a record high. subscribers flocking to the streaming company over the weekend for "house of cards." let's trade this. this is a nice bump. stocks almost 440 now. >> incredible. i think carl is actually starting to pick some off the table, right? >> from his filing. >> with his filing. i think when you talk about the streaming world i think you're still talking about content and that's one of the big story lines here when you're talking content. look at cvs today, scott. the focus is on all the exciting high fliers. but you look at cvs, you look at the run out of fox. some of the networks because of the content that they've got and you're talking about cvs, that

nfl deal as well. another revenue stream for a lot of these folks and just making money through. >> this time warner cable deal, parent of comcast, has wide reaching implications forlths netfl netflix' of the world and for even time warner for that matter for hbo. how do you trade this whole space at the present time? >> that's the irony. you know, we spent so much time focused on netflix and in the meantime as the other traders desk could mention. these companies are all courting a ton of money. what they're trying to do is have both distribution and content. it's not a one or the other game anymore. i don't think any of them can be left out of the sweepstakes. you look at a merger like a comcast/time warner that would cover 30 million viewers, subscribers -- >> comcast already has its own streaming service that surely it would like to expand to a

greater subscriber base. that's where the time warner cable deal has some benefits, as well. >> it's internet access and it's a whole host of other things. you used to think about netflix as a distributor and lo and behold they're creating content that stands toe to toe with almost anything coming out of traditional hollywood. so this is a really interesting moment and i think almost everyone is in play as a result of it. that's the real irch my indication. >> i would just say that on comcast/time warner it's a home run deal. comcast stock since this announcement of this transaction has come down. if it gets approval, $4.39 without -- in 2015 -- without any synergies yet. the leverage and the dominance and the bundle products that they're going to offer, hands down winner in my opinion. >> all right. it's been a great couple of days for team usa at the winter games. let's go to bryan sullivan on

the ground in sochi. >> good to see you. it's fair to say the dutch speed skating team is the carl icahn of investing. both having heck of runs. i'll get to why in just a second. not a bad day for u.s. we had a bronze medal in the two-man bobsled. and why bronze, why is that a great day? the two-man bobsled you're seeing right there, it has been a cool 62 years since united states has won any medal in the two-man event. steve holcomb, steve ling on the co langton with the gold. pretty much crushed everybody. some things go together well with chocolate and peanut butter, jon and pete najarian and davis and white because you saw meryl davis and charlie white coming through dominating the competition in ice dancing. they won the gold medal as well. carl icahn, dutch speed skating analogy was forth because of this. in the last two hours the dutch have now risen atop the medal

count, guys. this morning it was russia and it was the united states tied neck and neck. we had a speed skating event a couple hours ago. the dutch finished one, two, three. they now have 20 total medals. so the netherlands kicking butt there. speaking of smaller nations, guys. i actually have a trivia question for you. you were talking about the globe and trading the world earlier. so here's my question. can you identify the country that has this flag? let's show it. do you see this flag? >> the good thing is they put the name of the flag under the flag. we are all set. we are all in agreement that it's belarus. >> i would think canada. >> are we right? >> look. >> you know that ski jumper at the beginning of "wide world of

sports," the agony of defeat? that's me right now. i'm the television version of that ski jumper, guys. the agony of defeat. it was belarus. the reason i brought -- yeah, we're shocking, right? was that they are 69th in the world in gdp. atlantic did a great job of -- thanks a lot. this is why i come 20 hours for this. atlanta did a great job on gdp per medal win. belarus won six medals. if they had our gdp they would have won like all the medals. shoutout to belarus. by the way, that's belarus. >> word is that there could be some visa issues, sully, on the way back. sorry. hey, it's been fun. >> back to you guys. >> all right. >> in the studio. coming up, break away or break panera rchltsz and from panera to garden

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with custom communications solutions and responsive, dedicated support, we constantly evolve to meet your needs. every day of the week. centurylink® your link to what's next. all right. welcome back. paner panera, will they follow chipolte. >> stefanie link is our bear. steph, you're up first. grab your fork. >> okay. this is not a play on tonight's quarter at all.

actual lly i think that january was tough for the entire industry. i like 2014. i think it stacks up well. last year they underperformed the market. it was only up 11%. peers were up 35%. massively underperformed. i still think they're positioned well. they're doing a lot of investments internally in technology and labor. and they haven't even touched mobile just yet. i think that's going to be the next like to drive transaction growth. valuation 20 times forward estimates i think is attractive. >> i think the negative sentiment is justified. i think they're losing ground to ch chipotle. i think they're going to continue to take market share. management guided corp.s down for this quarter a few months ago to zero to 2% growth versus expectations between 3% to 5% growth. that tells me they're seeing something inside there that isn't so great. i think they're losing market share and they're going to be one of the people that don't partake in the higher. >> let me ask you this since

we're having a debate. you don't necessarily like it right yet. you think it's going to be a good year. when you be a buyer of the stock on a dip from here? >> i wouldn't. the stock just came down. it just came from the mid 160s up to where it is today, 180. i think it's gotten ahead of itself here again but, no, i would much rather own a chipotle than a panera. >> are you looking for a pullback? >> i would love to have a pullback. i would use this as my final trade at 168. i don't know if it's going to get there. i do think you have to look at this as longer term story because they are spending so much on investing, on technology and this whole labor hours. they were totally understaffed and they couldn't meet demand. so i don't think it's a product issue. i think it was a service issue. i think they are starting to fix those problems. >> losing customers, though. >> already for margins to be contracting this year. if they actually just improve upon that. numbers had a lot of way upside. >> josh brown, who made the more

compelling argument here? >> i'm with murph. looks like a triple top being put on a short-term basis. longer term, these stocks are all gone up so much. i don't think the space is that big to accommodate all the growth that they're all telling us they're going to have. i would not be abuyer. >> i think we just showed dominic chu on there, too. >> i want the chicken noodle soup and signature salad on the side. that's all i'm thinking about. >> tell us who your think won that debate. tweet us with #bull or #bear. we're going to give you the results at the end of the show. dominic chu, back to you. >> i'm going to wash it down with a coca-cola. the beverage giant posting lower quarterly profits. 46 cents a share. revenues a bit shy overall. global sales volumes rose less than expected in the quarter and fell in north america. another key market for them. that stock is down 4% right now. so, scott, coca-cola losing a bit of that fizz in today's

trade. >> stefanie, one of the issues here, the chatter going into the earnings report was because of what's taking place in the emerging markets, you had unsettled growth in the em s an then slower growth in the dms, developed markets. that's a problem if you have both of these key areas slow. >> very much so. >> slower. >> very much so. i wasn't that impressed with pepsi's quarter last week either and everybody was touting that as at least they got the frito-lay business and the snacks to bail them out. it's not happening. the environment is very challenging, certainly. this stock has massively underperformed not only the market but pepsi but and they just announced a billion dollar restructuring program. you're going to at least see some better numbers ahead, i think, as they start to plow this money into the business. >> the green mountain deal, more for green mountain's prospects. don't you think? than coca-cola there. >> i think they're going to spend a lot of money over the next several years and try to find pockets of growth because they know the soda business is in a secular decline. i think they're going to try and expand these noncarbonated

drinks and that's what they've been doing. i think eventually it's going to work and take some time. >> pepsi is well justified. they're doing best most of the business on the snack side. >> they didn't do it last week, though. the quarter was horrible last week. >> over ten years coca-cola stock has done nothing versus pepsi which has been a great growth company. >> i don't know about ten years, josh. i can tell you the last quarter of pepsi was nothing to write home about at all. >> one quarter of a decades worth of out performance. >> i would have to go back and look. >> josh, you done? >> yes. >> let's do our call of the day. dardon restaurants, jumping up out perform basically involvement of actavis investments. brian elliott is the senior restaurant analyst at a.j. welcome. >> good afternoon. >> so you say in the note here that it's the activism that leads you in a good amount to

upgrade the stock. yet the activists don't seem to be happy about all with what darden's plan is going forward. >> we're basically making a risk reward short-term trading call here. we think the stock has come down to a level where it should find some productity go itpretty goo. it's now at a discount, et cetera. there are fundamental issues with the company for sure. the upside is, you know, this stock ran up into the mid 50s when the activists were, you know, publicly talking about monday advertising the real estate in some way or doing a more comprehensive restructuring of the company. we think that the potential for, you know that view to come back into the market price of the stock, you know, is pretty high. and if so, you've got -- you've got a pretty nice trade. and if not, we think there's really pretty limited downside

here. more of a call on that basis. >> it's tough though. quuf got concerned about the casual dining space and essentially asking people to take a leap of faith on an out perform when you yourself obviously admitted admit that t fundamentals of this company are challenging -- >> quickly, i will point out the challenged fundamentals are reflected in the discount valuation. >> got you. okay. thanks for calling in. appreciate it very much. bryan elliott. coming up -- you want to trade this real quick? >> the guys over at barrington have been in this position before. they have done very well in the past. i think darden after this pullback is interesting. >> if they do what the activists want them to do. >> if they do. >> right now, they don't. >> right now, they don't. >> otis over there, the ceo, is giving the heisman to those guys. >> similar to what you saw with forest today and icahn, sometimes these things take time. if they can show they are going to unlock some sort of value with their proposal, i think it has to at some point come out. >> i'm just not sure they can

fix darden and red lobster. olive garden is a service issue. red lobster, they are waiting to go into the stores because they know they will get really good deals. i'm not sure that on a fundamental basis that that story works. i can't believe you just said that. >> you going on the record with that one? >> i'm not. >> talking about how it is, where the stock is right now and where he thinks it's going. >> if there's unusual activity out there, you know who will find it. what's popping up on the radar today, next. plus here comes what's coming up on "power lunch." >> on "power lunch," top of the hour, if you own a home or are looking maybe to buy one, listen up. a leading survey of home builder that just logged its largest drop in history. we will tell you what that means for home prices, the recovery and home builder stocks. also, auto sales aren't looking too hot, either. but the experts say the demand

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our resident stock swami pete najarian spotted unusual activity in a tech stock today. >> telecom equipment. this is an area people are

really absolutely exploding to the upside. it's already made some big moves. they've got earnings coming out in about a week and a half. today the march 28 call. stock trading around 26-ish. march 28 calls were bought, over 7,000 were bought somewhere around that 80 cent range, give or take. but very large buying relative to what had been going on. folks are looking for this name not only to continue, but to continue and explode to the upside over the next couple weeks. >> you like it. you in it? >> i am. i bought the options. >> the one you were just talking about? >> yeah. >> holding period? >> about a week and a half, probably right into earnings. if it already moves, i will take it off before earnings. if it hasn't, i will hold it through earnings. >> last quarter they disappointed. they beat on the revenue line but missed on the earnings line and didn't see operating leverage so people freaked out and the stock fell. they just announced the erickson deal friday. that's why the stock is so strong. it really does increase their brand recognition because it gets them more global. erickson is a global company. it certainly is a story that can continue to work. >> we will take a quick break and do the final trades.

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>> wendy's. buy it. >> pete? >> sienna. buy it. >> xlu. >> josh brown, what do you like on your final trade? >> advanced auto parts. aap. i think it goes higher. >> that does it for us. have a great day. we will see you tomorrow. "power lunch" begins right now. "halftime" is over. "power lunch" and the second half of the trading day start right now. >> scott, thank you very much. the housing market just got a little less sweet today, folks. home builder sentiment plunging this month. the sector bearing the brunt of the report this afternoon. there you see those big home builders all down by various scales. all right. want to own a car or buy one? come on down. today, we give you the first look at how this terrible winter weather is hitting the car market and not in a good way. will this mean that there will be some deals for you? and